PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - March 18

March 18 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* After policy makers hastily arranged a sale of the embattled investment bank Bear Stearns BSC.N to JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) over the weekend, stocks and other financial instruments fluctuated wildly during much of the day as investors started worrying about who and what would be next in the line of fire.

* President George W. Bush welcomed the Federal Reserve's sweeping intervention in the nation's financial markets as his administration faced accusations that it had supported the bailout of a prestigious investment bank while doing little to address the hardships of Americans facing foreclosures on their homes.

* By entering the online-game sector, media companies can attract advertising, including from food companies that have agreed to limit the nature and volume of television ads aimed at children.

* The New York Times Co (NYT.N) has struck a deal with a pair of hedge funds, giving the funds two seats on the board in order to avoid a proxy fight.

* Shaking up its leadership for the third time in six months, Citigroup (C.N) has named John Havens as the new head of its investment banking and alternative investments group.

* German engineering giant Siemens (SIEGn.DE), which has been trying to put a huge corruption scandal behind it, gave investors another rude shock, disclosing that delays and canceled orders would cut its quarterly earnings by 900 million euros, or $1.4 billion.

* John Deere Wind Energy is building an eight-turbine, 10-megawatt wind farm in Panhandle, Texas, that is scheduled to open in May.

* The Supreme Court handed Microsoft a defeat by refusing to rule on its request to halt an antitrust suit against it. The suit was brought in 2004 by Novell Inc NOVL.O, based in Massachusetts, which said in court papers that Microsoft had "deliberately targeted and destroyed" its WordPerfect and QuattroPro programs to protect its Windows operating system monopoly.

* Societe Generale (SOGN.PA), the French bank hobbled by a trading loss of more than $7 billion, announced that it was reorganizing its senior management team.

* A federal appeals court panel reversed the insider-trading conviction of Joseph Nacchio, the former chief executive of Qwest Communications International (Q.N), and ordered that Nacchio receive a new trial in front of a different judge.

* Pilots at Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) and Northwest Airlines NWA.N appear to have given up efforts to combine their seniority lists, which was considered essential to the two carriers' hopes for a merger without crippling rancor.